20/11/2012

Girls as young as 12 have been found to be Photoshopping pictures of themselves before uploading them to the web.

This is worrying. Firstly, who's going round checking that preteens actually look like their photos?

And secondly, these poor girls are foolish to do such a thing. If there's one thing I've learned from my time online it's to use the worst pictures in your avatars. That way, when someone sees you in real life they say, "Oh, you look great." And you can enjoy that compliment first hand.

If you look good online your profile picture gets all the compliments and you get the, "Oh. Are you feeling OK," to your face.

It was Carrie Paecher, professor of education at the University of London, who said it had become the norm for children to post provocative pictures of themselves on the web and for them to be touched up. While I now see that's a bad way to phrase it, I'm going to leave it, as it's a good warning.

The Prof said she's concerned that some young girls are using photo editing software to make themselves look thinner.

But at least if you do that on the computer you don't have to make yourself thinner in real life. You can maintain a healthy weight while your pictures get thinner. It's The Eating Disorder of Dorian Gray.